


Some Songs Will Not Be Sung

by CertifiedPissWizard



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cannibalism, Character Study, Dr Carmilla gets vibe checked out an airlock, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Trauma, also copious use of refrains, but depending on your perspective it has a happy ending, i just cant.... refrain from using them, science but bad, this is not a happy story, you know?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:41:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22918630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CertifiedPissWizard/pseuds/CertifiedPissWizard
Summary: The story leading up to Jonny throwing Doc Carmilla out the airlock isn't a song anyone will be singing, a story anyone will be telling.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 149
Collections: Stowaways' Shenanigans





	Some Songs Will Not Be Sung

**Author's Note:**

  * For [void_spells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/void_spells/gifts).



Honestly, Jonny preferred to charge in guns ablazing, but he took a minute to think about it. When he thought about it, he thought one thought in particular. He'd only get one chance at this, so he'd have to make it count. He paid attention to people's movements. Their schedules. He took detailed mental notes and tried his hardest to not chafe under all the waiting and Doc Carmilla treating him like a rabid dog. ~~if he was that's just because when she saved him she did it wrong. She fixed a broken piece and broke so much more and she treats him like he's a child acting out and~~ The point is he was doing what she said he couldn't do and actually thinking through a problem.

He thought it through over and over again, the same rage-fear-sadness tracing those selfsame paths in his mind, over and over and over again, a wagon wheel stuck in a rut. She saved him. And she hurt him. And she hurt others. And then she acted like he was childish if he pointed it out. And then she acted like he was childish if he didn't do what she said, what she wanted. And he couldn't couldn't couldn't keep rolling over and being how she wanted to get a single moment's rest from being treated like a rabid dog that needs to be put down. ~~It didn't bring back any memories of dad or jack trying to manipulate him because you can't do that if you lock it away so well that. It. Might. As. Well. Not. Have. Happened.~~

So he waited and he planned and he watched and waited and planned and watched and waited and- Ashes sets his pillow on fire. It sparks him into action. He doesn't know why. It just does. A catalyst for change if he wanted to be poetic. This isn't a story anyone will be singing, though. He won't sing the planning or the rage or the burning pillow. He especially won't be singing this:

The Doc is leaving her lab. She doesn't see him. He's keeping to the vents, asked Aurora to not say anything. She, quite generously agreed. For all that it can be annoying, occasionally being bossed around by a ship, and for all she may find it annoying, occasionally being bossed around by a human, the two of them are friendly to an extent. He owes Aurora a trip to a reputable mechanic after this.

She doesn't look to the vents. She doesn't listen. It's her ship and she left her lab and these people she saved, she as good as made. They owe her and none of them would hurt her. She makes Jonny sick to his stomach, and he watches and waits and follows.

He won't be singing this:

They're by the airlock and he jumps down from the vent. Aurora opens it, beautiful amazing creature that she is, awe inspiring in a way that he will never admit because Jonny d'Ville is not that sort of man. ~~he's barely a man at all. Stuck at 19. Forever~~ He pushes the Doc out the airlock. Slams the button to shut it. Aurora opens the outside door, the Doc gets ejected. Aurora speeds away.

He won't be singing this:

When he wakes up in the same room as his father's cooling body it is to pain. His chest is open and she is holding his heart in her hands. It shouldn't be beating, couldn't be. It is. She smiles at him. He watches her place something in his chest. There is pain and red and the smell of iron and he hurts and it burns with a fierceness. And then it is over and then she is stitching him up. And then it is truly over.

He won't be singing this:

He never stops tasting blood. He never stops feeling the wrong pounding of the lump of metal in his chest. He never stops feeling the feral wrongness burning within his mind. He never stops being not quite right in all the ways that matter.

He won't be singing this:

Before he climbed off the floor of the same room where he and his father both would have died at the hand of the other, before she took advantage of the dazed wrongness in his eyes to push him to make sure there was nothing left to tie him down, before he burnt down the last place on New Texas he would have cared about. Before all of that he lies on the floor and watches her lift his heart up to her mouth. Before all of that he watches her lift his dripping heart up to her mouth. Before all of that he watches her lift his still beating heart up to her mouth and take a bite.

He won't be singing this:

She snaps when he gets too wrong and emotional and unstable. She says that he's a failure. That she'll do better next time, pick someone less erratic, fix the flaws in the bio programming.

He won't be singing this:

The only reason there are other Mechs is that he was too young to know that she shouldn't have done that to him without consent. He was too young to know that being played like that wasn't okay. He was too young and too damaged and too much of a coward. The only reason there are other Mechs is that he was young and stupid and a coward.

He won't be singing this:

He insists on being called captain because if he's the authority figure, the one in charge, then people have to listen when he says no. They can't hurt him then, can't play him into killing or killing his father or the man who got him to kill his father. If he's in charge, in control then he's safe.

He won't be singing about the nightmares everyone has because of the Doc. He won't be singing about the breakdown he had when all was said and done.

Some stories are not meant to be told. Like the story of a scared kid made immortal, played by person after person the same way he plays the rusty harmonica he got when he was twelve. Like the nightmares they all have because of the Doc. Like the sick fear-joy-sad feeling when the Doc had him help her in her lab. Some stories are not meant to be told. Some songs are not meant to be sung. And this is one of those.

It has a happy ending, though. There's trauma and unwanted immortality and people who will never finish growing up and the knowledge that if the Doc ever finds them it won't be good. But they are alive and for all he doesn't care much for most of the Mechs they are all together. For all the crushing, horrible parts they are alive and together and that's a happy ending enough. The book is not yet closed, and there are stories left to write, left to tell. This just isn't one of them.

Years down the line when he sees Cinders and the Briar Rose clutching tightly to each other, surrounded by gore, he'll say that it's a happy ending. Brian will be a killjoy over it, but it won't matter. Because Jonny sees them holding each other and thinks, _For all the crushing, horrible parts they are alive and together and that's a happy ending enough._ The book is not yet closed and there are stories left to write.

**Author's Note:**

> this is loosely inspired by headcanons void_spells released into the void and also my late night creative fugues crashing upon me in a big way lmao. sometimes you fade out from your body and write this over the course of an hour, you know?


End file.
